was pure laziness. If he had up and slugged this Percival De Lacey
that tried to give him the outside of the road, and had kept Alice in
the grape-vine swing with the blind-bridle on, all would have been
well. The woman you want is sure worth taking pains for.

"'Send for me if you want me again,' says Redruth, and hoists his
Stetson, and walks off. He'd have called it pride, but the
nixycomlogical name for it is laziness. No woman don't like to run
after a man. 'Let him come back, hisself,' says the girl; and I'll be
bound she tells the boy with the pay ore to trot; and then spends her
time watching out the window for the man with the empty pocket-book
and the tickly moustache.

"I reckon Redruth waits about nine year expecting her to send him a
note by a nigger asking him to forgive her. But she don't. 'This game
won't work,' says Redruth; 'then so won't I.' And he goes in the
hermit business and raises whiskers. Yes; laziness and whiskers was
what done the trick. They travel together. You ever hear of a man with
long whiskers and hair striking a bonanza? No. Look at the Duke of
Marlborough and this Standard Oil snoozer. Have they got 'em?

"Now, this Alice didn't never marry, I'll bet a hoss. If Redruth had
married somebody else she might have done so, too. But he never turns
up. She has these here things they call fond memories, and maybe a
lock of hair and a corset steel that he broke, treasured up. Them sort
of articles is as good as a husband to some women. I'd say she played
out a lone hand. I don't blame no woman for old man Redruth's
abandonment of barber shops and clean shirts."

Next in order came the passenger who was nobody in particular.